What Could Have Been
by Bad Shot
Summary: My own version of Twilight and the events that went on before it. TATE


Spoilers: Contains parts of Twilight and An Eye For An Eye; Rest of the story will contain parts of the entire season.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS (unfortunately) and I'm just here for a visit.

CHAPTER 1

The familiar smell of gunpowder wafted into Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo's nose, while he stood there momentarily paralyzed by the events that had just unfolded before his very eyes. Tony realized at that moment that a warm liquid had landed on his face, and as if by the unseen hand of a ghost, he lifted his own free hand to wipe the liquid away.

In what felt to him, like an out of body experience his hand was brought up to his face and his eyes fell upon the dark red liquid was so vivid it could only be one thing.

He looked over towards his boss Leroy Jethro Gibbs not even bothering to lower his hand, and saw his eyes staring at the ground an expression of utter shock spread across his face. Tony's own eyes followed Gibb's and he finally saw the source of the blood.

Kate. With a small bullet hole dead center on her forehead. Her eyes still open staring into Tony, and he couldn't bring his eyes away.

Tony continued to stand there too shocked to move an inch. Gibbs on the other hand spun around and searched the surrounding rooftops in vain for the culprit. The steadiness of his gun roving from rooftop to rooftop was a complete opposite to the almost overflowing feelings Gibbs felt inside. He turned back around giving up his desperate search, and let the arm that had held his Sig Sauer fall limply to his side. For a moment Tony and Gibbs just stared at her body, briefly joined together by their shared grief.

Gibbs was the first of them to move back into reality. He slowly knelt down next to Kate and let out a sigh. He reached out with his hand and felt for a pulse of any kind but to no avail. He pulled out his cell and flipped it open quickly punching in Ducky's number.

The phone rang twice before Gibbs heard the familiar voice of his medical examiner, "Jethro make it quick. I'd love to get out of here on time tonight, and I don't trust young mister Palmer to do an adequate job by himself."

Gibbs could here Palmer's protests in the background but paid them no mind, "Ducky just get down here," he said without even the smallest tremor in his voice.

"Ahh… I presume that you were successful in your mission," the silence on the other end that greeted him caused Ducky to worry, "Jethro?"

Gibbs let out the breath he had been holding and repeated himself, "Just get down here," and without another word he flipped his cell phone down so that he wouldn't have to speak another word. He took his hand and rubbed his brow willing himself to do what he had to do, "Tony," he said softly. When he didn't get a response he yelled at him, "Tony!"

He was responded with Tony finally taking his eyes away from Kate's own eyes.

Gibbs realized a verbal response wasn't coming, "Go get McGee, tell him to start processing the scene working bottom to top. Also call in some backup; this is going to be a long day."

Tony just gave him a small nod before once again looking into Kate's eyes. He managed to rip himself away and turned away from Gibbs, a few tears finally making their way down his face. He quickly walked away towards the staircase and threw open the door. Tony let himself sink down the side of the wall letting the door close softly behind him. He stared a hole into the wall, his mind replaying the last few minutes in which his life had been turned upside down. His left hand absent mindedly going into his pocket and wrapping around a small object he had been carrying with himself for the last week.

Tony had always heard that your life flashed before your eyes right before you died. Heck in some of the movies that Tony had seen they showed it happening to someone. The one thing Tony didn't know was that the same thing happened when someone you love died.

***

Six Months Earlier- Somewhere over the Atlantic

***

On a normal day, if Tony had found himself in first class of a jet he would have made sure everyone knew it. But after what had happened in Ciudad Del Este he sat quietly staring out the window at the blue ocean underneath them. Tony hated it when any kind of politics interfered with his work, but the fact that they had to let a child molesting, rapist like Purcell back onto the streets made it even worse.

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Kate was making her way back from the ladies room. Even when she sat down he chose not to respond to her return.

Tony didn't even care that the bastard had been shot and killed. It wasn't his idea to kill him, although he would have gladly put a couple slugs into Purcell's head. Tony himself would have rather seen him rot in a jail cell, and wait there until the local government decided to just kill him.

He closed the small window and adjusted his seat so that he could go to sleep. Tony knew that he needed to sleep and his body was more than willing. Yet his mind continued to run over the possibilities he could have chose.

Tony began to feel Kate's eyes on him even as he tried to adjust his body into a more comfortable position. He ended up turning away from her towards the window not really in the mood to talk.

Ever since they had gotten onto the plane Kate had sensed that Tony was in a particularly foul mood. It had started when they were forced to release their child molester and he had only continued to get angrier at the situation.

Kate had seen Tony mad only in a few situations, but she had never seen his beat himself up about it.

Kate had just opened her mouth to try and engage Tony in conversation, when he turned to look at the window he had closed.

She considered still trying to get him to talk, but decided to let him get some sleep. She turned towards her small bag she had brought on and pulled out a book. As she began to read her book she found that it was nearly impossible. Kate found her eyes flickering over to Tony's motionless body, constantly.

She finally got fed up with his little act and threw down her book. In a small whisper she tried to wake her fellow agent, "Tony… Tony!"

The unnerving stillness of Tony's body gave Kate doubts about if Tony was really asleep. She reached out towards him and poked his arm. When she didn't get a response she decided to poke him a little harder in the ribs. The poke caused Tony to nearly jump out of his seat, "Okay Kate what do you need?"

Kate sensed in his voice that the question was only semi-serious, and the he was still angry but she decided to press onward anyway, "What happened wasn't your fault Tony," Kate stated trying to get him to open up.

Tony let out a little laugh and scoffed at the question, "Why would it be my fault Kate? The decision came from way above my head, not like I could really do anything."

Kate squinted her eyes at him and her profiler side came out, "I know that, trust me I do. The question is do you actually think that?"

Tony let out a sigh and turned away from her. Kate wouldn't back down and grabbed his shoulder forcing him to turn back to her, "Kate just drop it."

Kate was surprised; she had never seen Tony like this. At work he always seemed in control, granted he had never shown a mature bone in his body, but he still had some self control. If you had asked Kate even a week ago if Tony would ever show a mature side she would have responded with a laugh and a quick, no way. He had always seemed like he would be able to find the light in any situation, "Tony I will not just drop it. As much as it may unnerve me, you are still my partner and I'm worried for you."

"Well you don't have to Kate," Tony scoffed, "I'm fine."

This only cause Kate to get more annoyed with Tony's attitude. Here she was going out of her way trying to help Tony, and he was just blowing her off, "Really? You're fine? Then why for the past six hours have you barely said a word to me? I thought I would have at least heard some movie quote about planes by now."

"Okay I'm not fine. Are you happy? I don't care that he died. What if he didn't we would have let a rapist back out on the streets and you CANNOT tell me that he wouldn't do it again!"

Kate was slightly taken aback by his comment but came right back, "Tony you need to know you can't change the past. What happened, happened. End of story. Yeah we let him go but he didn't get to hurt anymore girls. All in all we did our job, we can't save everyone, everytime Tony. And you need to realize that."

Kate settled back in her seat and left Tony sitting there contemplating what she had said.

Both of them sat in silence for the next ten minutes before Tony spoke up , "You know this reminds me of this one movie called Serpico. Starred Al Pacino, and Tony Roberts. It was a great cop movie about this one cop, Pacino's character, in New York…"

TBC

A/N: Hope you guys liked it. I've wanted to do a story about Twilight for a long time but I have never really found the time and most of my others never came together that well. I hope you liked this and remember to review. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

P.S: Didn't really know what they flew on in that episode just said that it was a normal flight. So don't get mad at me for little mistakes like that. If you find anything out of canon tell me and I will hope that I can fix it. Thanks.


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